You Are What You Tweet

You Are What You Tweet

By Alexandra Lue, Intern

Yesterday I came across a parody of a “Twittervention” on YouTube. It was entertaining that a young girl could not function without tweeting every few minutes, even when she was in the bathroom, watching TV or hanging out with friends. I’ve heard of people being addicted to their iPhone or Blackberry (me being one of those addicts) but I find it amazing how people can let a social network absorb so much of their time, as they tweet their every whereabouts and every thought or emotion that they have.

Twitter has experienced a rapid growth since it is a great source for celebrities and athletes to connect to their fans, without the middleman media source. Individuals can directly post messages to their followers. People can “follow” singers and bands to keep up with what their favorite artist is working on, local news broadcast to view breaking news updates, astrological sites to check their daily horoscope, or friends and family to know what they are up to.

Twitter fanatics measure their popularity by how many “followers” they have and how many “Re-tweets” they get. Young adults are Twitter crazed, and tweet every few minutes to their social network diary, but what they fail to realize is that anything on the internet is not private. More and more companies are asking employees for their Twitter accounts to moderate what information they are posting as well as how they are representing the organization that they work for.

On an episode of “Kell on Earth,” a reality show about Kelly Cutrone and her public relation’s firm People’s Revolution, an interview candidate was hired and fired in the same day due to her Twitter activity. The candidate tweeted about her interview, landing the job and being on Bravo TV, all the interviewer had to do was type “People’s Revolution” into a search and there it was.

Friends on my twitter timeline are repeat offenders of what I like to call TMI-tweeters (too much information tweeters). Status updates like “I’m hungry,” “Late for work,” “drunk,” and “taking a shower” have absolutely no substance and are not newsworthy. It’s even worse when people include information about their romantic life that should be kept private, or vent their frustrations about their boss. So before you tweet, keep in mind that someone is always watching you and remember, you are what you tweet.